


The Real Thing On Me

by Katherine



Category: Guardians of the Galaxy (Movies)
Genre: Gen, Helping, being sick
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-12
Updated: 2017-11-12
Packaged: 2019-02-01 11:08:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 606
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12703773
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Katherine/pseuds/Katherine
Summary: When little Groot is sick, Rocket holds him. Peter helps, and so does the rest of the crew.





	The Real Thing On Me

When Peter stepped into the room he found Rocket pacing. (Peter thought of this as Rocket's room of the _Milano,_ since it had his workbench in, and a high cushion-y thing in one corner Peter was sure Rocket slept in more often than in an actual bunk. Rocket had little Groot in his arms. Hunched, his face pressed to one of Rocket's shoulders, Groot looked miserable. Peter wasn't sure when he had started being able to read Groot's moods (and he still couldn't understand anything vocal) but he was sure of the misery.

This was confirmed when Groot twitched and vomited a small, sticky-looking mess. Rocket wrinkled his nose, but didn't let go of Groot, and started gently patting his back.

Drax unfolded himself from a disturbingly-camouflaged corner (had he been meditating there or something?) and strode off with apparent purpose.

Gamora shoved in past Peter, angling herself so she was matching Rocket's slow pacing while looking directly at Groot. She said crisply, "You will fight this weakness of the body."

Gamora maybe wasn't the best at sympathy.

Drax returned with a dampened cloth which he held out to Rocket. Rocket took it, shifted Groot to his opposite shoulder, and scrubbed one-handed at his jumpsuit and the fur on that side of his neck. Peter hoped it would all come clean. Maybe tree-vomit needed to be iced off, like chewing gum.

Did they even have any ice? He could go check the kitchen area. He was pretty sure the fridge-thing worked by Nova tech that didn't involve ice. But there was that colder patch on the middle shelf they hadn't got repaired yet. (Rocket could have fixed it, but equally might have decided to give the fridge a secondary function involving explosions.) If Peter put some water in the smallest glass over there for a while he'd be making ice. Then he'd be helping too.

 

Over the next three days, Peter helped. He brought ice. He suggested Drax make chicken soup. (Drax _didn't,_ but it was still a good suggestion.) The second day, once Groot wasn't pukey, Peter held him for a while and sung "Moonage Daydream" to him. It was just being sick, not a fire-fight or even a dance-off, but they all got safely through it. Peter gave himself some of the credit for that.

"Now it's night," Rocket was saying, while trying to get the attention of a much less miserable Groot. Groot was on the floor playing with a collection of screws, detached buttons, and other shiny things. "Bedtime" was a word deemed by Rocket too _something_ —juvenile, probably.

None of them dared called Groot a baby, not after Rocket's reaction to the one time. Well, Peter didn't dare. Gamora had never tried, so far as he knew. Drax got away with "little one". ("He is the littlest of us," Drax had declared the first time he called Groot that, "and indeed the sole individual of his species.")

Rocket had lifted Groot and was now trying to lower him bodily into his pot. Groot kicked his little feet and shrieked his one phrase in a burst of high sound. Rocket set him down on the floor. "Fine! Don't complain to me if you wake up hungry."

After a few minutes' standoff, Rocket actually sounded coaxing, "At least a snack?" He poured some granules on the soil already in the pot. Groot deigned to dabble his feet before running off into a corner and settling himself there with all appearance of intending to sleep on the bare deck. He was clearly recovered from being sick, and back to being cutely in the way.


End file.
